Tag Archives: custom

Jiggle-O

Nationality: American
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Residence: Salem, Oregon
Performance Date: March 20, 2013
Primary Language: English

“In our orchestra at our school, we have a tradition that has been past down since . . . I’m not even sure when. But for the three whole years I’ve been in orchestra we’ve always done this tradition. It’s something called Jiggle-o and we do it before concerts. It’s something kinda weird and funny, but it might be hard to explain in words. So what we do is, first we privately gather in a circle by ourselves in some room. Then, one person starts off the process by saying ‘Jiggle-o, jig-jiggle-o,’ and then everyone says the phrase together again, ‘Jiggle-o, jig-jiggle-o.’ Then, the person who started it yells someone else’s name in the group in this way, ‘Hey _____!’ So for example, ‘Hey Jenny!’ And then the person responds with ‘Hey what?!’ So the whole sequence goes like, ‘Hey Jenny!’ ‘Hey what?!’ ‘Hey Jenny!’ ‘Hey what, hey what?!’ ‘Show us how to jiggle-o!’ Then everyone shouts together, ‘Show us how to jiggle-o!’ Then the person, in this case Jenny, yells, ‘My hands are high, my feet are low, and this is how I jiggle-o!’ As she says this, she will perform some dance move, usually something goofy or funny or crazy. Then everyone watches, and shouts together, ‘Her hands are high, her feet are low, and this is how she jiggle-o’s!’ And then they all perform the dance move together. And so on, then Jenny will start the whole process over and call on somebody else, until everyone has had a chance to perform a dance move. I don’t know if I explained it well . . . but yeah this is our little tradition thing before concerts that we do. It’s just a lot of fun and goofiness.”

My informant was unsure as to where this ritual/game came from originally. Probably one of the orchestra members brought it in from somewhere else, perhaps from a team-bonding activity from a sport. She said that it just helps the members of the orchestra to loosen up before concerts as people may become stressed or nervous. Doing fun little things like this help them to laugh together and relieve stress before going onto the stage. Also, she believes that it helps their teamwork, since jiggle-o requires teamwork and synchronization, and members of the orchestra bond as they act silly together and laugh together.

This seems like a cute and funny activity to do, something that allows people to get close to one another as they show their crazy sides. It was strange to me that the name of this game is jiggle-o, which is pronounced the same way as gigolo. When my informant first told me of the ritual, I was a bit confused and surprised, because I thought she was talking about a gigolo, which is a male prostitute. I’m not sure if these are connected, but maybe the activity had some Freudian roots, as they are showing each other how they “jiggle-o.” Nevertheless, it seems like an interesting and effective team-bonding activity, one that can help them loosen up before big concerts. Perhaps I will use it for an icebreaker game or when goofing off with friends.

 

Chinese/Taiwanese Custom of Praying at a Temple for Success in Exams

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 19
Occupation: USC student, majoring in electrical engineering, minoring in computer science
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 7, 2012
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, French

“China does not have one unified religion. The closest things we have are Buddhism and Daoism, but they tend to stick in their own temples and mountains. So unless you’re a very firm believer in it–it doesn’t trickle down to the normal population. What does happen is that Chinese gods are very practical. The general philosophy is that it doesn’t matter who you believe in, it doesn’t matter what kind of person you are, if you step in a temple, you offer your money, you pray, the gods will answer. So, the gods aren’t creators or great beings to be worshipped, they are beings with super powers that you trade with. Basically, we have what is called ‘paper money.’ You buy the paper money from the temple, and then you burn the paper, and you offer fruit, food, or whatever, to the gods, and the gods give you the good fortune that you want. So, we don’t pray at nights before we eat or before we sleep, we don’t call to God for help, but if we’re, for example, going to an exam, it’s very typical in Asia to take your sons or your daughters to a temple and pray to the gods before the exam starts to pray to the gods for a successful exam.”

Q. Have you ever done that?

A. My parents have taken me to temples when I was little.

Q. Was that a meaningful experience for you?

A. I never really believed that that would help, but since my parents took me there, I prayed. I’d say, “God, give me a good exam result.”

Q. Is the practice of taking kids to temples before exams very common?

A. Well, the temples get a burst of popularity every time final exams come around.

Q. On what other occasions do people go to the temples?

A. People also go on New Year, to have a good year, before you start a job, after you buy a new house. Also on the Day of the Dead, the day we honor our dead, a lot of people go to the temples. And some people come more than others; my family goes very rarely because we’re not very religious, so we go once every month or two.

Q. You said that you don’t believe that going to the temples actually helps. Do your parents believe in it?

A. They are agnostics. They take the Pascal’s gamble approach. If it works, it works, and we pay the money, it’s good. If it doesn’t work, well, we paid a little money, it’s not actually that much, and it’s an experience for our children, so that’s fine. They’re very busy people, and visiting the temple takes time, so we don’t do it very often.

Q. Can you talk more about what the experience of going there is like?

A. Temples are usually very noisy, very loud and crowded. Unlike Western cathedrals—I’m not very much into religion, but I love cathedrals because of the architecture—which are serene, and you walk into them and feel awed by God, in Chinese temples, it’s loud, they’re sort of a social gathering. Also, temples are markets—they’re markets with great food. Temple food is good. You know how in the New Testament, they describe Jesus as being very angry at the peddlers who were in the Temple, and he flipped their stalls? There’s a section in the New Testament where Jesus goes to the Temple and he gets very angry at the peddlers for defiling a sacred place. But this is the opposite. In the temples, you’re supposed to have that kind of people. If a temple doesn’t have peddlers, it means that it’s not very popular, and if it’s not very popular, then its gods aren’t very good. So a temple that is empty and sort of quiet and serene is a bad thing. Temples are supposed to be very loud, and there’s supposed to be smoke everywhere from the incense. That’s the Chinese temple.

There are these things, I’m not sure what they’re called, but they’re two crescent-shaped pieces of wood that are painted red. They look like slices of oranges. And you’re supposed to throw them on the ground. You’re supposed to throw a pair of them on the ground. And how they land will tell you how’s your luck. And you’ll hear those things clattering against the ground the whole time. Sometimes you’ll buy a little bag full of rice that’s supposed to be blessed, and you keep them as a sort of talisman or amulet for good luck. You can buy one for the kind of thing you wanted good luck from. So, if you want success in exams, you can buy a success in exam one, if you want success in love, you can buy a success in love one. It’s a very business-oriented thing. There are certain temples, even until now, which are very sacred and which treat money as less of an issue, like the Shaolin Temple and the Daoist temples. But your average temple—they all worship multiple gods, and it’s just whatever god’s most popular in the area. Actually, speaking of the Shaolin Temple, which is very famous for its martial artists—they are said to be the most business-oriented temple now. Shaolin martial arts have spread all over the world by virtue of them being very business-oriented. The head monk of Shaolin no longer sits in his room praying, he goes all over the world on private jets for business purposes.

Q. Does that mean converting people?

A. No, they’re not converting people to the religion. They are not encouraged, nor are they motivated to convert people to their religion. But they welcome people to come and practice Shaolin martial arts, and they get paid quite a bit of money for it.

Analysis: This tradition of praying at temples for success in exams displays a way that religion has adapted to fit people’s present-day concerns, pressures, and needs.

Chinese Custom: Wearing White

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 55
Occupation: Lecturer-UCSB
Residence: Goleta, California
Performance Date: 18 March 2012
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Last month when I was home for Spring Break, my mother once again berated me for wearing a cream colored hair bow. She says that in China, wearing white in your hair means that someone in your family has died and it is taboo to wear white in your hair when that is not true. In Chinese culture, the color white is the color of mourning and death. So, a lot of the times people wear white to the funeral.

This has always been interesting to me because in American culture, people wear all black to funerals and white is the color of pureness and innocence. Then, a woman wears white at her wedding to represent her final transference into womanhood. In Chinese culture, brides often wear red and gold because red is the color of happiness and gold represents wealthiness. I feel that color is always such an interesting kind of symbolism in today’s culture. In each society, certain colors mean different things and can transfer different messages. I know that roses are always a big deal because if a guy gives a girl yellow roses, he only wants friendship, they have to be deep red to be romantic.

Eye Contact before the First Shot

Nationality: Italian-American, Puerto-Rican American, and "European Mutt"
Age: 24
Occupation: Expert in Sales at the Apple Store
Residence: San Diego, California
Performance Date: 3.23.12
Primary Language: English

Everyone participating in a toast or the first drink of the “night” or celebration has to make eye contact with everyone else before taking the drink.

Custom described verbatim by informant:

“We need to make eye contact with each other, all the people who are taking the shot or it’s bad luck if you don’t. I learned that a while back and now I’m all about it. It might be a lingering thought in your mind but I really doubt if there’s any effect on your life if you don’t (laughs) I think people believe it because they don’t want to be sick at the end of the night so they feel like if they make eye contact with people they drink with they’d be better off. It’s like an anti-sickness superstition. We better our opportunity in waking up the next morning not feeling hungover if we make eye contact in the initial shot process. At least in my world. I don’t know about everybody else’s if they believe in something else but, it’s all witchcraft. (laughs then pauses) It’s about good vibes you know and if it’s about good vibes I’m into it.”

Though my informants description is humorous, he insists (at least in small groups) that you must do this every time a toast is made or the first shot is taken or drink is sipped. Maybe he views it as a way to forego getting a hangover and staying lucky as he continues drinking, but eye contact is also a simple way of establishing connection. Since drinking is very much a social activity, insisting on eye contact with everyone drinking with you, whether in celebration or not, gives the practice a deep-seeded feeling of togetherness—“Good vibes” in the words of my informant. Saying its bad luck to do otherwise is an easy way to get people to participate, especially if the flipside is getting sick later. Excluding oneself would be very anti-social, and the threat of bad luck and sickness lingers should you choose not to drink or follow this rule. I think its less about actually believing it and more about being social and connecting with people, if only for a moment.

Be Careful of the “Mal Aire”

Nationality: Ecuadorian
Age: 26
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

My informant, who is from Ibarra, Ecuador, was told as a young girl:

“¡No te hagas de noche o so no te va a dar el mal aire!”

 Translation: “Don’t stay outside too late at night, or you will get ‘bad air!’”

She explained that mal aire, or bad air, is something that you catch from being outside in the trees, but is not quite a sickness.  She says, “You feel back pain, but it’s not like regular back pain… You just feel weird, like something is not right.”  I felt that way once when I was little and spent too much time outside with my friends.

She was told when she was younger that her uncle caught mal aire while walking through the mountains to her aunt’s house.  The only way to get rid of it is to place a small candle (like a tea candle) on a person’s back and cover it with a glass cup.  If the skin “inflates” and looks like a lump in the glass, it first confirms that you have mal aire and also rids it from the body.

Yet, the threat of mal aire could just be a way to scare children not to stray too far from home, not stay out too late and stay away from trouble.  Additionally, the method of testing and purifying oneself only reinforces the fear of mal aire in children.  For anyone who tries it, when you cover a candle with a glass, it will create a vacuum and as a result, will raise the skin.  By telling children that it this happens only to people who have mal aire, adults can easily prove and scare children with this technique.  To further prove that it will happen to everyone, the mal aire “candle treatment” is similar to an ancient Chinese practice, called “massage cupping.”  For those who use this technique, cupping produces a deep, therapeutic state of relaxation.  This type of “massage” will likely remove the back pain my informant mentioned as well.